An humble inquiry into the rules of the Word of God, concerning the qualifications…

GLASS, owns that the Lord's Supper is not a formal Mean of Conversion, but of further Growth &Nourishment to those already converted.—In the same Strain is Mr. NASMITH's Treatise of the Entail of the Covenant.—And Mr. WARDEN's Essay on Baptism.—In a Word, I find Mr. CURRY (in his Synodical Sermon, Anno 1732.) testifying of the Ministers in Scotland, that they are tender (i.e. circumspect and cautious) in admitting People to the holy Table of the Lord; knowing, the Design of the Ordinance is not Conversion, but Confirmation: and he observes, that all who approve themselves to God here, will a thousand times rather choose to have, was it but one Table or half a Table of honest Communicants, true Believers and real Saints, than have a hundred Tables, by admitting any that are unworthy (or Christless Souls, as he anon characterises them) of whom there are not moral Evidences of their Fitness for this holy Ordinance. And for the commendable Practice of the Church of Scotland in being pointed and particular in debarring the Unworthy from this ordinance (says he) God forbid ever it turn into Desuetude.—I think, I may here not unfitly subjoin those remarkable Passages in Mr. ANDERSON's excellent Defence of the Presbyterians, against Mr. Rhind: where he informs us, They look upon this holy Ordinance as the common Privilege of the Faithful; and therefore they usually fence the Lord's Table, in the Words of Scripture, 1 Cor. vi. 9. or some such like—To excluded the Impenitent from the Privilege of Gospel-Mysteries; to debar ⟨p. 5⟩those from the Lord's Table, whom the Lord has, by the express Sentence of his Word, debarred out of the Kingdom of Heaven, is what every one, who is not quite lost in Impiety, must own to be not only lawful, but a Duty.—Upon which I beg Leave to observe, according to this Principle I do not see but that a Man who with apparent Signs of Credibility confesses himself habitually impenitent, ought to be debarred from the Lord's Table: And surely, by Parity of Reason, he that knows himself to be unregenerate, ought to refrain coming, since there can be no true Repentance without Regeneration. I think, we have no just Grounds to suppose, Mr. STODDARD's Principle in this Matter has hitherto any general Prevalence in the Church of Scotland.

GLAS, owns that the Lord's Supper is not a formal Mean of Conversion, but of further Growth &Nourishment to those already converted.—In the same Strain is Mr. NASMITH's Treatise of the Entail of the Covenant.—And Mr. WARDEN's Essay on Baptism.—In a Word, I find Mr. CURRIE (in his Synodical Sermon, Anno 1732.) testifying of the Ministers in Scotland, that they are tender (i.e. circumspect and cautious) in admitting People to the holy Table of the Lord; knowing, the Design of the Ordinance is not Conversion, but Confirmation: and he observes, that all who approve themselves to God here, will a thousand times rather chuse to have, was it but one Table or half a Table of honest Communicants, true Believers and real Saints, than have a hundred Tables, by admitting any that are unworthy (or Christless Souls, as he anon characterises them) of whom there are not moral Evidences of their Fitness for this holy Ordinance. And for the commendable Practice of the Church of Scotland in being pointed and particular in debarring the Unworthy from this ordinance (says he) God forbid ever it turn into Desuetude.—I think, I may here not unfitly subjoin those remarkable Passages in Mr. ANDERSON's excellent Defence of the Presbyterians, against Mr. Rhind: where he informs us, They look upon this holy Ordinance as the common Privilege of the Faithful; and therefore they usually fence the Lord's Table, in the Words of Scripture,